


ways of helping

by Mikkeneko



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Beauregard is having a shitty day, Caduceus and Molly at the same time because I said so, Everyone finds their own way to help, F/F, Family Feels, Found Family, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Menstruation, PMS, Pre-Slash
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-20
Updated: 2019-01-20
Packaged: 2019-10-13 13:23:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17488817
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikkeneko/pseuds/Mikkeneko
Summary: With as much time as they spent on the road, it was inevitable that this would come up. Beauregard is having a rough couple of days and the rest of them try to help, but mostly Yasha.





	ways of helping

**Author's Note:**

> I got the idea for this fic a while back, but decided to go ahead and put it into play when Critical Role Femslash Week came around. (Though this ended up being more pre-slashy than outright slash, I thought it still fell under the umbrella.) It seemed to me that with four women in the party traveling together for an extensive period of time, sooner or later they would run into, well, _periods._ I get why the main canon doesn't address it for the same reason they don't address most other mundane realities of life, but I still wanted to address it.
> 
> I also kind of got a bit derailed by speculative xenobiology in the middle there (and who better to channel that sort of geeky knowledge than our local geek?)

  

The problem with rain was that it didn't just fall from the sky. After a few days of steady drumming downpour the water had saturated the earth and came ricocheting back up from below, a constant low-level cloud that seeped into everything and everything stuck out in it.

There was no getting away from it, that was the worst part. Sure, they had a cart with a canvas cover on it that vibrated like a drumskin with the steady force of the rain; the cover would keep the rain from falling on you directly but even under it you weren't really _dry._   Everything was soaked, and it went _on_   being soaked day after night after day. Even the brief periods where the rain let up for a few hours, or they managed to start a fire despite the weather and drape their wettest garments around it in the vain hopes of drying them out, only managed to push them back to an unpleasant dampness before the rain closed in again.

Everything was cold. Everything was beginning to stink from the rain. Beau tried wrapping herself up in more layers, a thicker cloak, but all that did was trap sticky sweat against her skin without actually warming against the deeper chill. She felt cold and cramped, limbs lead-heavy, stomach gripped by a churning, harrowing nausea that every few minutes reached into her lower belly and _twisted._

She'd lost track of the days but she recognized the signs, the fever and the bad dreams and the joint pain and the crushing fatigue, and wasn't that just the cherry on top of the rest of it, that she could look forward to a week traveling in miserable weather bleeding into a wad of cotton stuffed into her crotch. It was only the first day and already she was leaking everywhere despite her best efforts to change out the pads regularly, and no matter how she tried she couldn't get clean for more than a few minutes, and it felt _disgusting._

And she just, fucking. She hated the rain and she hated the road and she hated her life and she really, _really_   hated her body.

She had the bed of the cart to herself for the time being; the others had been in and out earlier today but she'd snarled at them enough times that even Caleb had chosen to go read further up so that he was out of her range. No doubt they thought she was just a bitch. More of a bitch than usual. No doubt they were right.

Nott wriggled into the cart and sat in one of the corners opposite her. Beau gave a little grunt of greeting, about the most social she could manage to be right now. The goblin didn't immediately respond, staring at Beau with those huge, lamplike yellow eyes.

"What's your problem," Beau said, but she didn't have enough heat left in her to put into her voice.

"You don't look so good, Beau," Nott said in a stage-whisper they probably heard in Zadash.  "Are you feeling all right?"

 _Yes_   would be a lie and _no_ would be an admission of weakness. "None of your fucking business."

"You want me to get Jester?" Nott asked.

"No," Beau mumbled sullenly.

"I can, it's no trouble, I'm sure she'd come right over if I told her you needed her," Nott said encouragingly.

"No! I don't want to see Jester." She curled up a little tighter. It wasn't like she'd never tried before, but healing magic couldn't fix what wasn't broken. If there was a magic spell that could keep you from being a fuckup, she was sure somebody would have used it on her years ago.

"How about Clay? If you don't want to talk to Jester maybe Clay?" Nott persisted. "He could fix you right up and he wouldn't pry or ask any questions."

He probably wouldn't, Caduceus was a lot more conscious of people's boundaries than Jester ever was, but the thought of letting the tall earthy firbolg into her personal space right now made her skin crawl. "I don't want to see Clay either. Just go away, will you?"

"No!" Nott said stubbornly. "I'm not going to leave one of my friends when they're injured."

"I'm not injured," Beau said, surprised. "We haven't even gotten into any shit in days, when would I have gotten injured?"

"Bullshit you're not!" Nott scorned. "You're doubled over yourself like Caleb that time in Hupperdook when he got _impaled._ And I can _smell_ the blood! You shouldn't hide injuries from us. We have clerics who can heal you!"

"Will you _fuck off!"_   Beau snarled, then immediately regretted it as Nott drew back looking hurt. She huddled back down into herself, the brief spark of satisfaction for making someone else as miserable as she was snuffed out as quick as it had come. "Sorry," she mumbled.

"Okay... look, okay…" Nott said slowly, then began fumbling around in her pockets. "If you don't want to talk to either Jester or Clay I have a healing potion you can have. I try to keep some on hand because Caleb's always getting hurt you know. But I can --"

"Healing potions won't help! Healing spells won't help!" Beau snapped. She took a deep breath, swallowing down nausea, trying to control her temper. Nott was trying to be _nice,_   for fuck's sake, and here was Beau biting her head off. Fuck, she really was just an awful person. "I just... leave me alone."

"Why would healing potions not help?" Nott demanded. "Are you sick?"

"No."

"Are you poisoned?"

"No."

"Are you _cursed?_ " Nott persisted.

"No! It's -- ugh! I don't want to talk about it. It's just, uh," she lowered her voice to the quietest mutter that can still be heard over the rain. "That -- that time of the month."

Nott still looked confused. "Duscar?" she ventured hesitantly. "No... time _of_ month... like, you mean, the full moon or something? Oh my god, are you a werewolf?!" she gasped. "Beau! How come you never told us you were a werewolf!"

"I'M NOT A WEREWOLF!" Beau shouted, patience well and truly exhausted. "I'M HAVING MY PERIOD, OKAY?!"

The words rang out across their entire little caravan; every other conversation faltered and stopped dead and even the horses stumbled a step in their pace.

Beau put her hands on her face and dragged them down from forehead to chin. Great, just fucking _great._

"I don't understand what that means," Nott said sullenly.

"Don't -- didn't you tell Jester you were an adult?" Beau choked. "You -- y'know, where once you get to, uh, childbearing age you start having periods? Where every month you bleed for a few days?"

"Uh, _no._ Is this a human thing?" To Beau's mortification, she turned around and cupped her hands to call out to Caleb, up on the front of the cart. "Caleb! How come you never told me you get injured and bleed every month?"

A part of her was hoping he would turn red and splutter if only so that she would have company in her mortification, but Caleb didn't even look up from his book. "That is only female humans, Nott," he said calmly. "It has to do with the reproductive cycle of humans. Every month the body prepares for the possibility of pregnancy, and if that possibility is not realized, then the womb empties itself out to try again for another month."

"Are you telling me that goblins don't have that?" Beau demanded. Fucking hell, even the _goblins_ got a better deal than her.

"No! That's fuckin' weird!" Nott rejected the notion with scorn. "Every month? Goblins just have one time a year that they can get pregnant and everybody knows when it is, just like sensible people. Hey Fjord! Orc ladies don't get not pregnant and bleed every month, do they?"

Fjord at least was blushing and looking like he wanted the ground to open and swallow him up, like any _normal person_   should when faced with the topic. "I, uh, I don't know any lady orcs, so I can't rightly say."

"None of my sisters ever had anything like this," Caduceus said with quiet certainty. "Seems kind of… awkward."

"Ja, other races do not handle reproduction the same way." Caleb closed his book and held it on his lap, glancing up at Beau before turning to focus on Nott. "Most peoples have set fertility periods once a year, or two in a year. Elves do things entirely differently, their reproduction is tied to their religious marriage rituals. The lunar menstrual cycle is unique to humans. Well, and tieflings and aasimar as well, as they are descended from humans."

"Lucky us!" Molly called out from WC's back. "We get all your shit _and_ all the racism too."

Jester came skipping up alongside the cart from whatever had been causing her to dawdle by the roadside. If there'd been any hope that she had been out of hearing range of Beau's accidental confession, it was dispelled by her next words. "Beau! You're having your period?" she said loudly. "How come you never _said?_ I could have shared my supplies!"

"I don't wanna talk about it!" Beau snapped. "I feel shitty and gross and I don't, I don't wanna talk about it. It's embarrassing."

"It's not embarrassing Beau, it's perfectly natural and normal and just part of life!" Jester insisted. "Ladies get periods, it's okay!"

"And sometimes gentlemen as well," Molly interjected. The others looked over him and he shrugged. "What? Not everyone who was born female stays that way."

"Yes, but, the point is it's not something you have to hide!" Jester steered the conversation back on course. She began to fumble with her haversack, pulling the flaps around within reach. "I have some medicine I can give you..."

Beau frowned in puzzlement. "Wait, medicine?" she said.

"Yes! My mamma takes medicine so I don't get any little siblings," Jester explained. "Most of the working girls did too. She gave me a bunch to take with me before I left, so that I could have fun on the road and be safe!"

Beau had no idea how to respond to that. "I -- look, I don't --"

Fjord coughed. "It, erm, I don't know that it would be smart for a human to take medicine made for tieflings."

Yasha had been listening in on the whole conversation from her own horse, but now she spoke. "It should be fine," she said. "Most everything works the same for us as for you."

"I don't need medicine!" Beau said loudly, then cringed when everyone else's attention switched back to her. She glared at the ground, the dirt of the road being churned to a muddy grit under the cart's wheels. "I'll… I'll manage fine without it. I can handle a little bit of pain, okay? I'm not a wimp."

When she glanced up again Jester, Nott, Fjord and Yasha were all staring at her in astonishment. "What?" she demanded.

"Beau... remember that time with the Hydra?" Fjord said, as if she could ever forget. "That fucker beat you to shit and nearly bit your damn arm off, on top of bein' poisoned! And you were still on your feet and in fightin' trim. Nobody, absolutely _nobody_ is gonna think you're a wimp, okay?"

"But I -- I just --" She fidgeted with the edge of her bracers, unable to meet his eyes. "It's so _pathetic_  that I get knocked out by such a stupid little pain. Everybody gets periods, everybody else seems to be handling it. _I_ should be able to handle it."

"No Beau, not everybody's the same," Jester said earnestly, leaning down and nearly twisting into a pretzel to turn her head upwards and look Beau in the eye. "For most people sure, but some people get much worse pain and that's not right. If you're hurting this much, that means something is very wrong and you deserve to get treatment for it!"

For some reason that struck a nerve, reverberated up and down her stomach and she suddenly felt tears threatening. _Fuck._ She was always so fucking emotional at this time, she didn't _want_   it, she didn't _need_   everybody to be solicitous and understanding and _sympathetic…_

"Beau? Did nobody ever try to help you before?" Jester said quietly, watching her with worried eyes. "Not your mom or your friends or anyone?"

"I -- I dunno. I never had any girl friends before," Beau confessed. "My mom, well, she never really forgave me for not being a boy so she never told me shit. The only person who talked to me about it was my tutor at the Cobalt Soul, she taught me how to clean myself up, but when the cramps got really bad she would say to just suck it up and get over it."

The only recommendation Archivist Madir had ever given her for handling period sickness was to exercise more and she had _tried,_   but the attempt had ended more often than not with her crawling to the latrines to vomit when she couldn't stand on her feet any more. She'd always ended up on punishment duty for a week afterwards until she'd learned to hide the signs.

Dismay flared in Jester's eyes, and her mouth set in a hard line. "Well, you have friends now!" she declared, straightening up and tossing her hair in a defiant gesture. "And we're gonna take care of you whether you like it or not!"

She did _not,_   but nobody listened to her.

 

* * *

 

 

The fussing didn't really start until they stopped to make camp for the night. Fjord insisted that she stay in the cart and rest while the rest of them set up the tents, which made her feel pretty shitty but not as shitty as getting up and laboring in the cold rain would have done. Once the tents were set up she moved out of the cart into one, though to be honest there wasn't really all that much to choose from between a cold, wet, uncomfortable cart and a cold, wet, uncomfortable tent.

Nott brought Beau a hot stone wrapped in cloth. How she'd managed to heat it up when it was still too wet for any of them to start a fire Beau wasn't sure, but she suspected wizardly interference. "I still don't think I get it," Nott confided, "but you said it was like muscle cramps, right? This helps me when my legs cramp up, maybe it'll help you too."

"Thanks," Beau mumbled to her knees, but she took the heat pack and stuck it under her shirt. It did help, a little.

Caduceus mostly left well enough alone -- thank fuck at least _somebody_   in this group knew how to do that -- aside from stopping briefly by the tent and handing her a cup of tea. She took it with muttered thanks and he nodded serenely and moved on. The tea tasted like shit, but it did make the deep churning nausea back off a bit.

Molly of all people chipped in next, stooping by the entrance of the tent to look in on her. Whatever he saw seemed to decide him, his tail flipping with vigor despite his studied-casual tone. "Tell you what, I can take your watch shift tonight," he said. "You just rest up."

"I'm not fuckin' _dying,_ Tealeaf," she hissed at him, but he only laughed.

"You humans with your blind eyes are useless enough on night shift as it is," Molly said. "How much more so would you be when you're miserable and distracted?"

"Hey," Caleb's voice protested from outside, but without too much vigor, and Molly laughed again and went away.

Caleb himself did not make an appearance -- Beau thought she would have dropped dead of shock if he had -- but not long after the cup of tea arrived so did Frumpkin. He walked over her lap several times, then settled down against the small of her back and began to purr. He was so warm and solid and soft that Beau felt the traitorous tears threaten again, and she shotgunned the rest of the tea to cover it.

Jester popped her head in and chirped, "It's too late to help this month but Beau, if you want I can share my medicine with you!" She waggled a cutely embroidered cloth wallet, decorated with the symbols for the day of the week and images of the moon in its phases. "It's supposed to make your periods way more regular and less painful, so maybe it'll help for next time!"

Beau had to admit that as nice as everyone was being, the thought of not _needing_   to be fussed over was an even better one. But that relief was a month in the future, and did nothing for the now.

The camp had settled down, all the chores and moving around accomplished, and the others were talking in low voices outside the tent when Yasha appeared.

"Oh hey," Beau said, straightening up as a bolt of surprise ran up her spine. She tried to turn the motion into a casual one, shuffling around and getting her legs under her instead of pressing her knees to her chest like a baby, and set aside the mostly-cooled stone. "You staying here tonight?"

Yasha nodded wordlessly and began divesting some of her gear, obviously settling in for the night. Beau coughed lightly, wondering what else she should say, what she should do. Frumpkin got to his feet, stretched, and vanished somewhere out the side of the tent flap, and Beau felt a pang for the loss of his presence.

Yasha's appearance threw her into a dilemma. On one hand she was always lowkey yearning for the other woman's presence, for her attention, for just a little scrap of _anything;_  but on the other she desperately wanted to show Yasha her best side. Nothing about her was at her best right now. How could she look cool for Yasha when she could hardly even stand up straight?

While she dithered Yasha finished setting up her bedding. She placed her boots by the foot of her bedroll, her sword close at hand by the door, then sat on the bedroll with her legs open and patted the blankets in front of her. "Come here," she said.

Beau blinked. "Uh, what?"

Another pat. "Sit here," Yasha said in her quiet way. "I'll help."

Slowly she transferred over from her own bedroll to Yasha's, scooting awkwardly around at Yasha's gesture to face away from the other woman. "Like -- like this?" she said, her voice gone hoarse.

"Mm-hmm." She felt the voice as much as she heard it through her back pressed against Yasha's front and it sent a shiver up her spine and goosebumps down her arm. Yasha was so _warm,_   like a furnace of heat and light churning behind her. She was still processing that situation when Yasha's muscular arms closed around her sides, nudging their way under her elbows, and her hands settled on Beau's belly.

Beau went rigid, then melted into the embrace as Yasha's hands began to rub slowly across her lower stomach. Her hands felt as hot as Nott's stone had but somehow less scorching, more soothing. The warmth seemed to penetrate through her skin and muscles into the core of her, pushing the pain away.

"Wh - this -" Beau stammered, tongue-tied. For once, Yasha's words came more readily.

"Back in my tribe…" Yasha trailed off, but her hands didn't cease their steady motions. "I knew a woman who had problems similar to yours. This... this would help her."

Beau's ears pricked up, trying to pick out the emotions that flowed in Yasha's voice like river currents under thick ice. She wasn't sure she'd ever heard Yasha volunteer so readily about her life with her tribe. "Someone close to you?" she ventured. "Like, a sister or something like that?"

Yasha was silent for a long moment. She rested her chin on the top of Beau's head, breasts and belly pressed against Beau's back. "Or something like that," she acknowledged quietly.

Yasha smelled like flowers and burning salt and something rich and unidentifiable, something that went in Beau's nose and straight down into her body, bypassing her brain. She knew that right now she must smell gross -- if Nott could smell the blood, then surely at this distance Yasha could too -- but it didn't seem to bother her.

"Are you sure you want me here?" she said, her voice wavering just a little in the middle of the sentence. "I mean I -- I might bleed on your blankets."

"I'm not afraid of blood," Yasha said quietly. Her arms tightened for a moment, then released as her hands resumed the slow deep massage. "I wouldn't have asked you here if I didn't want you."

She said nothing else, but continued her slow movements as time crawled past like honey. For the first time since the rain had started Beau felt truly warm, for the first time in days it felt like she could breathe again, let her chest inflate and fill down into her belly. For the first time in days she didn't feel so pathetic for being so weak. For the first time in days, in Yasha's eyes, she didn't feel disgusting.

"Thanks," she whispered. Yasha didn't answer in words, but Beau felt a warm pair of lips press briefly against the back of her neck, then away.

Beau wasn't sure when she fell asleep. But she woke up the next morning still encircled in Yasha's arms, both of them on their sides on Yasha's blanket, and the sun was shining in through the roof of the world.

 

* * *

 

 

~end.


End file.
